Here
by dark-dai
Summary: A broken love story. P.O.V. Songfic, weird, thought oriented, dislocated, het...etc. Yeah just read, cause I suck at these summary things.


I used a pairing most people don't. Heh. Well, I like it, so that's all that matters. And just because my attempt to get the 2 together fails miserably cause I suck, don't mean that they aren't good together. So, yeah. There.  
  
**This is a songfic. If you take out the direct references to who, it could be about anyone, really. So, just read it. If you really wanna know the pairing, just scroll down and check out the very very bottom...then you can decide if you wanna read at all.**  
  
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing is not mine...but if you want to believe it is, go ahead...I'd love to be able to take credit. (and 'sides, if it was mine, Quatre would be dead. I hate him, hehe.) The song is 'Here' by Gravity Kills. (I am digin' them big time right now)  
  
Warnings: Umm, Het, angst maybe? I dunno. Oh yeah, some cuss words.  
  
Pairings: I'm not telling cause I'm a jerk...obviously  
  
~I'd give myself up for your sins~ = song lyrics  
  
**This is a pov piece, and the person is thinking, sorta speakin to someone else, but the someone else ain't there. You'll get it.**  
  
((Ok, last thing...the song rocks, get it and listen to it. Seriously. You'll like it, less you are one of those pop addicts, then you probably prefer something a little more...ok, I won't go there cause I don't want to insult. God knows I have my own flaws.))  
  
HERE  
  
~Looking through your window~  
  
~A million miles from me~  
  
The dry desert wind blows in through my car window and whips my hair across my eyes, and I squint slightly, trying to keep my vision clear. The sun is setting and the air cooling, the world a wash of orange and gold and pale sky. I press the gas harder to the floor and my old black Camaro lurches forward smoothly, easily gaining speed. The flat, empty road is stretched before me, an endless black line flowing ever ahead into the horizon. Reaching into forever, on each side of me, is nothing but sand, miles and miles of golden glitter, empty and desolate. The world is nothing but me and my car, the fading day, and the endless horizon of sand. It is beautiful.  
  
I could be the only person in the entire world at this moment. I feel as though I am, I feel more alone than I have ever felt before. I can't help but wonder if you are staring out your window, a million miles away, thinking of the same thing I am at the moment. And then I know you are. You and I are the same. We are exactly alike, and that is the problem. We are like mirrors, reflecting back everything inside the other a thousand times. Inverted, but still the same. Is that why I am here and you are there, is that why we couldn't make it? Our twin opposites are our undoing. You're voiced, I'm quiet, you rush, I wait, you scream, I stare, but both of us with such passion. We could never break each other, and that's what drew us together. But we also know how to hurt each other. The same thing that hurts me, hurts you, even though we both like to pretend that nothing can touch us, nothing can cut that deep, get past our shields, our scars. We are exactly the same.  
  
God. I left to get away. To leave the pain and memories behind. Everything I see here reminds me of you. I thought the ocean you loved so much would be the worst place to go, but now I'm not so sure. The desert is full of you. Maybe it's the fact that there is nothing here, nothing to buffer the memories that flood my mind, maybe it's just me. The world is made of your colors. The white sky is like your skin, the gold sand, like your hair, and the wind like your whispers. God, it's beautiful here. God, you are beautiful. Even in that last moment, when I couldn't take anymore. When you couldn't take anymore. When I packed my bags and bought a ticket to this far off place, when I decided that enough was enough and left it all behind. You were beautiful even then, right then when I hated you.  
  
I can do nothing to stop my own thoughts as I stare out the windshield, not really seeing anything at all. I don't know where I'm going, and I'm not sure I'll ever find out. Maybe I'll drive forever, just keep going until I break down, run out of places to go, run out of time, or life, or something. I'll just drive until I forget about you. Until it doesn't hurt anymore, and I can breathe without this hole in my chest. Until that absence, that emptiness is filled with something, or consumes me so totally that I can't tell anymore. I'll just keep on going until there is no more pain, or until I just can't feel it anymore, when the wind and the rain and the distance makes me numb.  
  
~My ears are bleeding from the silence~  
  
~Echoing like rain, I cannot see~  
  
My thoughts are echoing in my head, bouncing back and forth and I can't banish them. I hear your voice, every word you have ever spoken just for me. Every whispered phrase, every shout, every moan and gasp that escaped your lips. God, you have no idea how badly I want to hear your voice right now. This unearthly silence is crushing me, bearing down on me like the weight of the world. The silence in this pristine desert is tearing at my ears and time is bleeding me dry. How can I possibly feel this way now? I left. I couldn't take anymore of you, how you clawed at my insides, trying to tear me in half with your unbearable presence. I left because I had to break free. Had to be free of those bonds and shackles that you had me tied down with. I wanted to get away. I needed to. If that's true, why do I doubt now?  
  
The sun hasn't quite gone down, and the rain is sudden and heavy. Desert rainstorms are like that. I drove right into it. I could see the hazy horizon ahead of me, grayer and dimmer, it seemed a mirage until the warm shower began to soak me through the window. I leave the window open, the wind and rain pushing inside the car, soaking me, soaking the leather seats and the dash. Spraying up in my face and making it even harder to see out of the blurry windshield. The wipers don't work, they just seem to smear the waves of water in blinding arcs. I don't want to stop the car, I don't want to break the rhythm I've fallen into with the world, the highway, the engine. My bones and muscles and mind were in their groove, drifting along at a steady pace, moving, just moving, but so still I didn't have to think or process anything except random thought.  
  
It's a shame I don't have the growl of the engine to keep me company, to bite back the silence. If you were here, you'd talk to me. All I have is the echo of the rain on the hood of the car, on the roof, drumming on the glass and pattering onto the leather seat from the still open window. Slowly I roll the window up and then open the door and step out into the rain. I love the rain. You love the rain too, don't you?  
  
I have to disagree with you now that I have this experience, though I'll never get to tell you. I have to say that rain on the ocean is not the most beautiful thing, not by far. Desert rain is absolutely the most amazing thing on earth. It mingles with the gold and bronze and blood colored tones of the dry terra, coating it with a hazy sort of surreal quality. It comes, and just as suddenly, stops all together. And then everything has life. It's almost instant. It makes something, creates, awakens something. The ocean only drinks in the drops hungrily and waits as more spill into it's churning depths, drowning the pureness of the rain in it's salty tear like pool, mingling it, and making it nothing more than another drop of water in an endless expanse of the same. In the desert, rain is a rarity, and every bit of hidden life comes out to pay homage to the sky for the gift. It's by far the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.  
  
The hood of the car buckles and groans as I slide up on to it to take a seat. The rain makes the metal slippery, and I can feel myself following the slope back down towards the headlights, falling in slow motion. I have felt like that for days. I've felt like that since the moment we decided to be silent. Since the very second that mutual decision to give up was made. Mutual. Did we really decide this? I don't remember me deciding, or you, or we. I only remember the empty feeling that came when I looked away from you, turned and left. I never looked back. I never looked up to see if you were watching me go, like you always do when I leave, like you used to do.  
  
The rain is pelting down harder. It hasn't been as long as it feels, the drops only started five minutes ago. They say it never rains long in the desert, that it just stops, and in minutes, if it weren't for the open buds of desert flowers, the rain would be forgotten completely. Is that how we will be? When the rain, the tears and regret pass, will we forget? Will I? I look up into the sky, trying to keep my eyes open and watch the water fall, see where this flood is coming from, but I can't see. The rain is cool on my skin and my wet hair falls away from my eyes, but the drops sliding down my face from my eyelids are warm. Am I crying? Or is the heat in my eyes as I picture you warming the drops, reminding me of why I fell in love in the first place. The rain, tears, it's all the same now, isn't it? It doesn't mean anything anymore, yet it means so much. It means that's it's over.  
  
~Leaping from your window~  
  
~The fall to set me free~  
  
The rain stops so suddenly that it startles me. The shower is over and I can almost hear the rain being sucked into the earth around me. A hissing echo that sounds like the world around me taking a breath. Sitting on the hood of the car, the warmth from the engine beneath me, seeps in to warm me against the chill that settled with the rain. I brush my soaked hair from my eyes and stare out into the horizon. The breeze is still warm, but it raises chill bumps along my skin as it cools the soaked clothes that are now plastered to my body. I can't help but shiver at the feel of it. The sky is clear, but it's getting darker. I'm watching the desert around me fall asleep, and wake up all at once. It feels a little like a dream. The smell of the rain fills my lungs and I taste the drops of water lingering on my lips.  
  
Wringing out my clothes as best I can and shaking the water from my hair, I stand and move to get back into the car. The dampness is not uncomfortable, but I struggle to get situated on the slick seat of the car, rolling the window down again. The engine roars to life and I hear the throttling, rumbling life of the car as I ease it into gear and drift back into my lazy pursuit of the distant horizon. I think, that if I can make it there, where the sky meets the street, to that line where heaven and earth touch, that I will have the answers I need. Maybe then I'll know, know more than I do now. It's the only thing that keeps me going. Otherwise, I think I'd just stop and walk out into the desert, loose myself in the dunes and darkness and emptiness that is as much outside of me as in.  
  
I push the car harder, gaining speed, trying to reach that peak, make it move as fast as it can possibly go. I'm trying hard to leave you behind, but every time I look in the rearview mirror, there you are. Watching me, staring at me, waiting for me to move, but as hard as I try, I can't seem to get away from you. I want to, so badly, but then again, I want to stay, I want you here with me. Confusion has always been a constant companion for me, especially when it comes to emotion, to feeling, to you. And, just as it was that first time we spoke, it is now. A complete confusion, I'm torn between knowing that I need you, and needing this freedom. I watch the dial absently, the arrow steadily sweeping the circle of the speedometer, higher and higher, faster and faster. My heartbeat matches the spin of the car's engine and my chest tightens, it's hard to breathe.  
  
The wind is pushing so hard against my skin I think at any moment it will peel back and reveal the monster beneath my flesh. I'll have to look at what I really am, and how much worse I am without you. The air is pushing past me and I feel like I'm falling, now more than ever. And I see you, watching me from your window, moving farther and farther away. I know that what we had is ending, dieing. I took the plunge from that height and I'm waiting to hit bottom, for that blackness to surround me, that desirable blank numbness that I had grown so accustomed to before you. That emptiness that from afar seems so free.  
  
~A leap of faith is all I ask~  
  
~Remove myself from all that used to be~  
  
The darkness of the desert is so complete that it's like drowning. The colorless air closes in around me, caressing my skin and sucking all the light out of it. Everything is black. The sand doesn't glow, not even in the headlights of my car. It's flat and dead and cold. It is how I feel. It is how I am. Maybe I am just lost in the atmosphere of this desert, it's desolate air penetrating me, making me doubt. Perhaps it's my solitude that's making me wonder, worry, think about you. My decision, our decision, redoubling and folding in on itself. I just need to have faith that this was the right thing for the both of us, that we are following the right paths. But all of this, all this blank loneliness that is surrounding me, only makes me wish things had gone differently, that things could be like they were.  
  
I can feel the air growing colder with each passing second, I can hear the silence growing. The wind batters my skin, slapping my hair into my eyes and I attempt to tuck it behind my ears, but it falls back into my face in the storm of wind. I look up into the rearview mirror again, and I don't see you following me. I can still feel you though, I can feel you brushing my hair back from my eyes, the wind like your fingers, soft and delicate. It hurts. It's like the claws of every memory of you are tearing at my heart. Like they always have, the way they have since the moment I met you. I always heard that love was a happy feeling, yes, it could hurt, but it was a blissful pain nonetheless. As long as I've loved you, it's hurt. Is, was it the same for you? It's been tearing me apart the whole time. Even when we were together, happy, content, it still hurt. It was like I couldn't get close enough, it was never enough. I still feel that way.  
  
Maybe the pain will go away now that we are separate. Perhaps the solitude of this desert will be absorbed into me, calm me. It is serene here, if nothing else. Maybe removing myself from all that we were, all that was, will help this gash in my soul to heal. Something was, is, wrong in our love. Maybe it was too strong, or maybe we are those lovers that are supposed to loose each other, or remain unrequited, and that's why it still hurt so badly even when we found each other. Still, I believe if we could have melted into one another, become one person, it wouldn't hurt, but we cant do that. We can't do that, not now, not ever.  
  
~Now I'm here for all to see~  
  
~Everything torn out of me~  
  
~Too late to drown in all my doubt~  
  
~Too much too late to sort things out~  
  
The engine rumbles and whines in the quiet around me, flowing smoothly over the asphalt as if it were water, or glass. I can barely feel the road beneath the tires, and it's smoother still, for there are no bumps or curves on this endless road. I almost wish there were, just to break the monotony, to give my mind a jolt. My thoughts swim with regret and so many things I never said, would never say. Those little unspoken words that everyone carries with them, knowing they should just say them, but never doing it. Whether it is out of fear, or love, or ignorance, they never come out, and they rot inside the mind. Like infection. I have to stop, have to stop thinking, stop hurting, at least stop driving and catch my breath for a moment, or I think I will suffocate.  
  
Slamming my foot on the breaks, I jerk forward, bracing myself, locking my elbows so I don't crash into the steering wheel. I can hear the tires squeal in protest, and I can smell the burning rubber, feel the heat of the engine and see the smoke of friction peeling up from the road and tires. The world is quickly slowing down around me, the blurred images in my side vision are clearing and I'm holding my breath. The car is sliding at an angle, the world tilting and spinning slightly, then I'm back straight again, parallel with the road. The tires are still sliding, trying to gain purchase on the smooth pavement. I don't turn the wheel, I just let the car come to rest where it will. The force of the abrupt stop sends me back into the seat and I let my head fall back on the rest and focus my eyes on the roof of the car. My breath comes out in a burst and when I inhale I can taste the bitter tang of the smoke. It tastes like regret.  
  
I peel my fingers, white knuckled and stiff, from the steering wheel and flex them. I can hear the quiet crack of my knuckles, feel the tension relaxing, my body aching slightly from the strain. My car is pointing back the way I came. It turned completely around during the stop and I didn't notice until now. The headlights are shining on the skid marks in the road, and I can follow the black blemishes back a hundred feet or so into the darkness. The marks lead backwards, the car points backwards. My mind falls backwards and I wonder if it's a sign.  
  
I can't sit here anymore, can't be still with my thoughts. They are crashing against my skull and my eyes are burning. I'm not sure if it's the smoke, or the acrid smell, or if it's you that is calling the tears to my eyes. The door creaks as it opens, and the sound of my boots hitting the street echoes. It's strange, there is nothing for it to echo off of, but I can still hear it. I lock the car door and pocket my keys and step off the street and into the sand. It's soft and grainy under my boots and I can feel it shifting under my weight. It's not like beach sand. It doesn't squeak and crack under my steps, but instead I sink slightly and it spreads round the heel and toe of my shoes, leaving an indistinct footprint that immediately starts to wan and wear away with the wind. I can see dunes in the moonlight, like waves. In a few days they won't be here, they will have moved, the face of the desert changing in the winds. They are called walking dunes. They remember  
everything, every place they have been, taking part of each place with them. But the place they left behinds forgets them as soon as they are gone, and another dune is built.  
  
I have to keep directing my thoughts to silly mundane things or else I'll break. I'll crumble and fall to the ground and cry, or melt, or maybe I'll blow away like the dunes. But I can't keep my heart from remembering what I left behind. I can't help myself as tears spill from my eyes. I can only stare, still and silent, at the blackness around me as the wet proof of my pain falls across my skin. I can't be strong all the time. I try, but you have always been my weakness, and the loss of you, even more so. The sand catches me silently as I slide to my knees, and I twist my hands into the hair at the sides of my head. I'm sorry isn't good enough this time, is it? Apologies won't fix things this time. If you could see me now, see my tears, would it make a difference?  
  
God. I feel like my soul, my heart, everything inside of me, has been torn out. My walls ripped down, I'm bleeding and screaming inside. I'm broken and laid out for the world to see, naked, more exposed than I've ever been before. But you can't see me. You can't hear me calling out, with my mind or heart or whatever part of me it is that needs you most. You can't see me, can you? I drop my hands to my lap as I sit back on my heels and raise my head to the sky. The stars are blurred in my eyes, and they look faded and I know. Now I know.  
  
It's just too late now. Things can't be fixed, they can never be like they were. People say that sometimes, and hope that things can still be something. Something close, or better even. But with us, I know that things just won't be, ever again. They just won't be, period. I can't fix things, and I can't go back now. I can't even blow away like the dunes, walk away from what was, what could have been. I wish I could drown in my pain, waste away, kill myself, but that won't help. My own personal hell is upon me, I'm living it, and I know it would only be worse in death. All the doubts I had about us won't even save me now. They were unfounded. It was purity, love, the rightness, that ruined us. I can't drown myself, numb myself in the truth of realized doubt.  
  
I dig my hands into the sand, and watch as it falls to cover my skin, burry me in its embrace. The top layer is cold to the touch, but underneath, there is a warmth. You are like that. Cold on the surface, but underneath, you are warm. You hid that from people, still do. I think I may be one of the only people that know that about you. I want to be buried in that, in the sand, in that warmth. I want to be buried in you. It's too late for that now. It's much to late to work things out now. No matter how much I want that, no matter how much you want it. Even if we both want it more than anything, it just can't be. That's what hurts the most, I think. That neither of us want this, but we have to live with it anyway. Because it's just too damn late.  
  
~When the clock is ticking~  
  
~A twisted face I see~  
  
The wind picks up and I'm battered in the breeze with sand and cold. I can't help but shiver. It feels so much like the chill I felt when I looked into your eyes that day. They were like ice. The blue so pale it seemed white. I could see the pain there. That flat angry look you gave me, and the silence that came off of you in waves. I'm sure I looked similar. I know my eyes were flat too, flat green glass, emotionless and yet holding so much pain in that moment. I know that's how I look now. Even with the tears, I can't help but start to go numb. I don't think I'd ever seen you that naked, and yet cloaked, in all the time I've known you. How I could make you look that way, how I could possibly bring you that much pain, haunts and agonizes me beyond words. You were flat and empty and barren like this desert. Your long platinum hair falling to your knees, heavy and still, like this sand that I sit in. So far from the living veil that I like to run my fingers through. It was  
like every part of you was dead.  
  
I can still see your face. Through time and distance, I can see the pain twisting your face, as it should have been. As it would have been had I not cut so deep that you imitated me, became like me. Detached yourself so much that you couldn't even bring the anger to the surface. The anger that is so much a part of what drives you, makes you move. It hurts to know that I did that to you. We were supposed to bring each other out. You were supposed to help me feel emotion, show it, find the ability to get angry, and to cry instead of eating my pain and dying inside from the poison. I was supposed to help you learn control. It seems we did too good of a job. We've switched roles. I'm a broken mess now, so angry that I could bring war to all that exists to get revenge for my pain. I've broken and everything is seeping out of me, spilling out like a river or cascade of sand from a cracked hourglass. And you are closed up, locked within yourself.  
  
Out of the quiet I can hear my watch ticking, steady and constant. A tiny noise drawing me back to reality. It's gotten late and I'm cold to the bone. It seems just a short time ago, the sky broke and the rain spilled down to the earth, crying the tears I couldn't then. But it's nearly midnight, and its darker now, the moon higher in the sky and further from me. Moving away from my broken soul, from my pain. Held at a distance from me as if I were poison. Almost as far away as you are. And I can't help but realize how alone I am. Maybe I'm meant to be alone. Maybe you are meant to be alone. I think, perhaps, we are meant to be alone, and that's why we were so alone when we were together.  
  
~My sight is blinded by the darkness~  
  
~It doesn't mean a fucking thing to me~  
  
I brush the sand from my clothes as I stand, watching it fall to the ground. I can feel myself slipping back into the old familiar shell I crafted so long ago. The shell I stepped out of for you. It's always been easy for me to slip the mask back on, especially when I don't want to feel something. And who wants to feel pain? It is strange how easy it is to fall back into that emotionless persona, since it was so hard to cast off. I didn't want to ever have to be 'him' again, but I suppose, 'he' has his purposes. And 'he' has a strong hold on me. After all, 'he' is me. I am, and always will be Nanashi. The good thing is that Nanashi doesn't feel pain. 'He' doesn't feel anything. 'He' is completely blinded in the darkness that surrounds us all, and doesn't need a light to see what's there. I don't need the light. I don't feel, I don't care, when I am 'him'. Nothing means anything to me when I am Nanashi, and I am always Nanashi. Nothing means a fucking thing to me.  
  
I slide back into the car, the seat is still a little damp and it creaks as I shift. I turn the key and the engine growls, vibrating the car. I throw it into gear and push the gas to the floor. I can feel the car lift from the ground and the tires squeal as I peel out, the tires spinning and leaving more black marks in the road. The engine roars, and I throw it into the next gear, and again my old Camaro picks up, already speeding down the highway. The world flies by, sliding soundlessly past my window, but I don't see a thing. The desert night is beautiful. Just as beautiful as it was earlier, but I don't see that now. All I see is the road in front of me, stretching endlessly onward, pointing me to the horizon. I'm going back the way I came, but it doesn't matter. It'll be days before I have to deal with the world again. For now, the world is again, only me, my car and the sand. The flat emotionless desert sand that is just like me.  
  
~Turning from my window~  
  
~Nothing fazes me~  
  
The wind is stinging my eyes as I speed down the highway, but I ignore it, letting it dry my eyes, hoping that it'll bring with it the desire, the ability to sleep. A sleep that won't haunt me with images of you, of my past, of the war. Nanashi doesn't dream. I know my body is growing tired, I can feel the weariness replacing the chill, but my mind is too blank to allow for sleep, to empty. I can only process driving, nothing else, and it takes over my body, pushing it to complete the impossible task of going until I reach the end of this road. Hopefully, the wind will make me tired.  
  
They say that wind, like when your riding in a car, window open, the rush of air hitting your face, is like flying. That it's the closest thing to flying one can get, without actually doing it. They are wrong. I have flown. It doesn't feel the same at all. Not even close. Flying feels like weightlessness. It's not as pleasant a feeling as one would think. Leaning out the window of a car feels so much more real. It feels more like freedom, more of a rush. There is the possibility of falling, of crashing to the ground not far from you. Of getting sucked under a car. There is more danger in the wind than there is in flying. Flying gives you a sense of control, real control, for as free as it is. But, with two feet on the ground, moving faster than you can on your own, being pushed at by the wind, jostled by something you can't control is far more exhilarating. Much like falling. Though falling is a bit different as well. Falling is fear and adrenaline and certainty. You know  
you are going to reach the bottom eventually, safely or otherwise. But wind riding is never certain. A pocket of air could end your life, or cause some other damage, or it could push you back to safety. It's not like flying at all. It's better than flying.  
  
I turn away from my window, and my thoughts, and focus on the road again. I still can't get a feel for sleep. Something is still driving me, just as I am driving this car. That need to get to the end of the road. Its unfamiliar, and it seems like it's not a part of me. It's some lingering part of the me I am trying to forget. It is coming from the part of me that didn't turn the car back around and head farther away. The part of me that wants to go back home. But I won't go back. No matter the direction I am headed, there is an end I can reach, even if I have to pass by something I'm trying to wipe from existence in my world. I ignore it, just as I ignore everything that doesn't strictly relate to what I am doing. The desert means nothing, it is only something I am passing through, the world and the people in it are only something I am passing by. I watch it all go by, the beauty, the pain, the color, nothing phases me.  
  
~I built this perfect little hellhole~  
  
~It seems to be the perfect place for me~  
  
My eyes unfocus as I drive, blurring the road ahead of me, but I never slow, never pull myself back into now. My sight is in my mind, reminding me of all reasons I became what I am now. All the pain and fear that drove me to create the mask I wear now. My memories play in my mind like an old movie, detached and emotionless, soundless. I can see my childhood, from afar, as if were happening to a stranger. All the blows that connect with my body, all the cuts and bruises and scrapes standing out against my skin. I watch as familiar strangers tear my body, use me like a toy, beat me, try to break me. I watch as they start painting my body with the colors of pain, red blood, blue, green, yellow bruises, black sores on my soul. I watch as the shadows close in on my too small frame, bending me to their own shape, shaking me like a doll, and I don't feel a thing. I watch as my eyes dim and I become something more dead than alive. I see the moment that I started to become someone,  
the very second that I have a name, a place, a purpose that I never had before. I watch as I truly start to peel away the layers of nothingness that I had crafted around myself.  
  
I watch within my mind as you step into my life, and start to melt away the remaining coat of metallic absence around me, revealing the person that couldn't handle the world by himself. I watch as I grow and open up, becoming the person I only am with you. Then I watch as all of that starts to crumble, the pain overtaking me again. The loss of what I worked so hard for, we worked so hard for, disappearing in a tide of petty cruelty and foolishness. I watch again, that moment I broke down and then fell with a crash back into the protective walls of silence and naught. Slipped back into the robotic, unfeeling, uncaring personality that had protected me for so long, and would again.  
  
I built this hell for myself, and I'm living in it. I always have been and always will be. It's the perfect place for me to be. This might be hell, but at least this way, I can't feel the flames burning my skin, burning away my soul. It seems pain follows me, and I can't escape it, so I choose not to run. But I choose not the feel it either. As a child I got so used to being blamed, blaming myself for the pain I felt, that it became part of me. It was what I expected. And so I brought it on myself. You are the same. You always expect the worst, don't you? That's why we ended up this way. Back where we started from. Back in our own personal hells. It's the perfect place for both of us. If you feed yourself pain, torture yourself into insensitivity, what threat can sting you? When you are pain, it can't hurt you anymore. When you make your own hell, what mythical place of torture is there left to scare you?  
  
~Now I'm here for all to see~  
  
~Everything torn out of me~  
  
~Too late to drown in all my doubt~  
  
~Too much too late to sort things out~  
  
The world around me starts to slow and I can hear the engine choking, trying to stall out, die on the road. I check the gauges mechanically and realize that I'm out of gas. The car finally dies and I push it into neutral and let it coast to the side of the road. When it stops I begin to ready it to be left, locking the doors, rolling up the window. From the trunk, I grab a gas can. I passed an old gas station a few minutes ago, but I was too lost, unfocused, to stop. The sun will be up in a few hours, by the time I get back to the car, the sun will be blazing, heating the desert with it's unrelenting rays. Shutting the trunk, I put my car keys in my pocket and lift the can from the ground and turn in the direction of the gas station.  
  
I'll be walking for at least two hours, only my thoughts and the sound of my steps on the asphalt to keep me company. I suddenly miss the wind. As irrational a thought as that is, I do. I wish I were still in the car, speeding along, wind in my face, stinging my eyes. But I'm not in the car, driving. I'm walking. I move at a steady pace, falling into a rhythm, one foot after another, moving, walking. Ever forward, I have to have a destination, a place that I need to go. The station, the dunes, the end of the road. Someplace, something to think about. Something that has a purpose, else my mask might slip, and I'll remember, I'll feel once again. I can't let that happen, not entirely. I need more than anything, to let go. Though not completely, I can never let go of that other part of me completely.  
  
As much as I am Nanashi, there is still a part of me left, the other me, the me that is because of you. And that part of me still hurts, that part of me still loves you, needs you. That part of me wishes it wasn't too late. I wish we could sort things out, that we could fix things. That an apology would be enough. Cause I'm sorry, I am sorry in every way a person can be. But it's too late for that now, isn't it? There is no turning back now. We drifted away from each other, and all the pain is pushing us along, farther and farther. So, here I am. Walking down the highway, for all the world to see. Everything that I was for you, with you, torn out and left to dry up and blow away in the desert. It's too late for reassurance, to late to blame it all on doubts and misunderstandings, to drown in that lie. Too late to work it all out now. But I can still feel a little bit, and I can still tell you with all my heart and soul, though you won't hear me, that I'm sorry. Even though  
that isn't good enough anymore. Even though you'll never hear it. I'm sorry. I love you, and I'm sorry, Dorothy.  
  
I can almost feel my apology crumble in the dry air, drift away in the breeze. Silent and unheard. You already know everything I could say, everything I want to, need to say. You already know, just as I know the same about you. But there is nothing we can do now. You stare out your window, far away, at your ocean. And I stare out at the endless sea of sand around me, black in the night. And we both whisper our hearts into the wind, only to be carried away, like our breath. Lost in the world, mingling with the sorrow of every broken thing in the universe, and we are still alone. You sit and watch the waves, alone in your shell, and I walk the endless desert, alone in mine. That's all we can do. So I walk. Maybe I'll just keep on walking.  
  
((((Ok, over now. We can move on and forget that this was ever written. Heh. So, yeah. That's it. 3xD...hehe. Love that, I do. Later, jack!)))  
  
~*Soli*~ 


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